10
votes
Accepted
Why is vowel length not considered phonemic in Turkish?
Linguists do understand that vowel length is phonemic in Turkish, but that understanding is probably not shared by Turkish speakers generally. The Turkish govt. dictionary does note the length of <...
- 81.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Looking for examples of natural languages with affricates but no corresponding fricatives/plosives
A likely place to start, I think, would be to find an affricate that’s relatively common, but whose corresponding fricative is not all that common. The most obvious candidate to me is /(d)ʒ/.
The most ...
- 3,953
6
votes
About similarity of sounds in Swedish and Danish
Swedish
The Swedish sound you refer to is a marked variant of /iː/ commonly heard in Stockholm and often associated with ‘posh’ speakers. It differs significantly from the unmarked realisations of /iː/...
- 3,953
5
votes
Accepted
Pronunciation of ‘hₐ’ in PIE
The transcription *hₐ is a sometimes-seen, idiosyncratic way of writing what is otherwise more or less uniformly written *h₂ when reconstructing Proto-Indo-European. It is known as ‘laryngeal two’, ...
- 3,953
3
votes
How many beats is a syllable?
A syllable is an organizational abstraction, a grouping of consonants around a vowel (with various putative exceptions). Beyond that, it doesn't make any sense to try to "define" a syllable, ...
- 81.9k
2
votes
Accepted
Why are some phonemic sounds not included in their language’s phonemic inventory?
To start out, I think it's worth mentioning that it's debated whether phonemes are real.
If phonemes are imaginary, there might be no greater reason than whimsy and happenstance for listing one ...
- 17.8k
2
votes
Looking for examples of natural languages with affricates but no corresponding fricatives/plosives
According to the PHOIBLE search tool PSmith:
0 languages have /pf/, but no /f/
1 language has /pɸ/, but no /ɸ/: Banjun (GM)
44 languages have /ts/, but no /s/: Garo, Lakkia, Chukchi, Chamorro, ...
- 334
1
vote
Why is binarity emphasized so much in linguistics?
Binarity is favored over alternatives by general scientific logic, therefor to the extent that a linguist is concerned with scientific logic, that is the expcted tendency. However the specific details ...
- 81.9k
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